School Stuff 2: Began reading today

Today I started reading on the history of the early church and on the historiography of the New Testament, as part of my first semester as a seminarian. I am very excited about both of these subjects and am already learning a lot. The most interesting aspect I have learned from the church history book is about the three different strands of early Christianity... a heavily Jewish sect centered itself in Jerusalem (which followed circumcision of the flesh), a strand which blended Jewish prophecy/law and Greek moral philosophy arose under Paul in Antioch in Syria (which followed circumcision of the spirit) and a third, more mystical strand arose in Ephesus, dedicated to the beautiful, esoteric Johannine writings (and which, like the Antiochan school, followed the circumcision of the spirit). This area, in Ephesus, was also where it is believed that Mary (mother of Jesus) died, and is where the first Marian cults arose and gained prominent in AD 600 or so. The Council of Ephesus, held in this area, is where it was promulgated that Mary was the 'Mother of God,' a decision which both promoted the divinity of Jesus and their own particular patron. Ephesus was also an area associated with Artemis, a pagan goddess associated with virginity and childbirth, and this could help to explain why a Marian emphasis arose in this area.

I also did a great deal of reading, tonight, on how the New Tesament developed as a canon over the years. Most interesting, probably, were the rigidly defined, medieval "levels of interpretation." One was supposed to read the book first literally, then tropologically, then morally and then analogically. In direct opposition to this was the Renaissance interpretation, which came from the Northern European Christian humanists like Erasmus, which held that the the other interpretations would flow out of the literal interpretation rather than existing as discrete entities. This reading also revealed a long tradition of critical theological reading which belies the notional that critical readings of the New Testament are a recent phenomenon. I look forward to reading more tomorrow!